Weeks afterward, I asked her to explain more fully this dual control, and her reply seems to me singularly illuminating.
“The connection with the pencil has no influence on your consciousness. We may control the consciousness, through purpose and its unity, even though other forces control the material instrument.”
This seems not only to show why these messages are written sometimes with and sometimes without the messenger’s previous knowledge of their content, but also to offer a possible explanation of phenomena of a much wider range.
To my great surprise, Mary Kendal announced herself a day or two after this, having preceded Mansfield, she said, because I was “fairly beleaguered by the enemy” in an attempt to prevent the publication of the message.
In spite of this reinforcement, however, M. A. persisted in attempts to engage my attention. On one occasion, he invited me to “try a little change” and talk to him. On another, he asked me to let him write, as he had “a long story to tell” about my husband, who was out of town. Again, he assured me that I had disappointed “them,” that “they” felt that I had failed as a messenger, and that Mary K. had departed permanently. Still again, when confusion seemed to have overtaken the book project, he declared, quite frankly: “We have stopped you now. M. A.”
No longer troubled by these intrusions, however, I never permitted him to use the pencil after his identity had been discovered. Occasionally I was deceived for a moment, and not infrequently it was his failure to complete a sentence or a word that betrayed him.
“He defeats himself by his fear, like all cowards,” Mary K. said, one day, and when I mentioned that his messages lacked continuity, she returned: “No coward is consecutive. How could he be?”
These were by no means the last of the encounters with Matthew. Mr. Kendal arrived on the 7th of May, and a night or two later, when several of those interested in these communications were together, M. A. made his appearance again. For some time his initials followed every attempt to establish communication with our invisible friends, but eventually we obtained Mary Kendal’s clear signature, and a message, slowly written, with frequent pauses, during which the personality striving to oppose her was gradually overcome. M. A.’s erratic touch was occasionally evident, lessening in strength as Mary’s steady, gentle control increased.
“Come on,” she said, finally. “We are ready for a little fun now, and we will leave the more serious matters until we have more truly a clear field.”
Accordingly, we abandoned our intended inquiry, for the moment, resorting to persiflage, in which she took an active part, writing with increased fluency.